Black Rainbow

Rating:
Summary: A Gothic Classic, Michaels at her best!
Review: An unforgettable love story. The young girl who marries the master of the castle only to find out "all that glitters is not always gold". Great suspense, difficult to put down! A Michaels classic!

Rating:
Summary: A Gothic Classic, Michaels at her best!
Review: An unforgettable love story. The young girl who marries the master of the castle only to find out "all that glitters is not always gold". Great suspense, difficult to put down! A Michaels classic!

Rating:
Summary: read another of Michaels' books instead
Review: Barbara Michaels usually writes wonderful Gothic romances with great plot twists, wonderful characters and witty dialogue. You won't find any of that here. I had to force myself to finish this dreadful book.

The "heroine" is actually the plain-looking and plain-spoken sister Jane. The governess who you think will be the heroine is a pretty idiot who can't see the obvious flaws in the man she works so hard to entrap. Except for Jane and a few workmen, every character in this book is so boorish, selfish or sociopathic that you don't care what happens to them.

Forget this book. Read instead Michaels' clever "Stitches in Time" or her even better "Wait for What Will Come." They're both so excellent you'll mourn when you come to the last page.

Rating:
Summary: More Historical Romance than gothic.
Review: Black Rainbow doesn't maintain a good pace like many of Michaels other works and is missing many of the ghost story elements I like to find in her work. However, she has a wonderfully twisted ending.

Rating:
Summary: A stormy night, a dark rainbow
Review: Romance, suspense, an ancient English manor house, a beautiful young heroine with two very different men in her life....how could a novel fail with these ingredients? Barbara Michaels spins a bodice-ripper tale that is far above the ordinary. Using her fine ear for dialogue, her quick and accurate characterizations, and solid plotting, she quickly engages the reader's interest and empathy.

In Michaels' trademark "end beyond the ending", further events spill forward just as you think you've reached the conclusion of the tale. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A stormy night, a dark rainbow
Review: Romance, suspense, an ancient English manor house, a beautiful young heroine with two very different men in her life....how could a novel fail with these ingredients? Barbara Michaels spins a bodice-ripper tale that is far above the ordinary. Using her fine ear for dialogue, her quick and accurate characterizations, and solid plotting, she quickly engages the reader's interest and empathy.

In Michaels' trademark "end beyond the ending", further events spill forward just as you think you've reached the conclusion of the tale. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Jane Eyre! Forgive her!
Review: Total rip off of "Jane Eyre" with a modern, feminist twist. It would've been nice to be a wee bit original. Surprise ending, though!

Rating:
Summary: Not your run-of-the-mill gothic romance
Review: You'd think that, having written 60 or so books in more-or-less the same genre, Ms Michaels / Peters would not have a spark of originality left in her. But here she takes the features of a typical gothic romance and skillfully turns everything on its head. The man and woman set up as the hero and heroine are not in fact the hero and the heroine. The prize is not romantic happy-ever-after, but rather something apparently more pragmatic (a neat solution to a problem?), and perhaps even more idealistic than romance (social justice?). And this delivered in Ms Michaels' usual competent and readable writing style. Is there such a thing as a sensible, mature gothic romance? If so, here it is.